Chris Scott lauds Patrick Dangerfield as best player in AFL after four-goal masterclass against Carlton
Patrick Dangerfield firmed for a second Brownlow Medal with a four-goal masterclass against Carlton, which led Chris Scott to laud him as “the best player in the comp”.
Geelong
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The sky is the limit for Geelong in September according to Patrick Dangerfield who his coach says is the best player in the competition.
Dangerfield was again best-on-ground as the Cats stitched up a top two finish by brushing past a disappointing Carlton by 68-points on a wet night at GMHBA Stadium.
After a mid-season form slump, the Cats have rediscovered their mojo on the back of an inspired Dangerfield who dominated the Blues with 34 possessions and four goals.
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“We have put ourselves in a great position finishing where we have, the sky is the limit,” Dangerfield said.
Since Dangerfield arrived at Kardinia Park, the Cats were comprehensively beaten in consecutive preliminary finals and were then thrashed in last year’s elimination final by Melbourne.
“It doesn’t burn,” Dangerfield said. “You don’t look back look in the rear-vision mirror, it’s about the opportunity ahead of us.
“The season itself is all about getting to this point, nothing else really matters.
“We have given ourselves a great opportunity having played the way we have played and it will be used over and over — the word exciting — over the next weeks but it’s true, it is.
“It is hard to compare years but we have got a really healthy list, we’re executing the game plan we have set up, I feel like our players are playing well and our coaches are on top of their game.
“It’s a great place to be.”
Dangerfield’s odds to win his second Brownlow Medal will shorten again after Saturday night with his past month some of the most dominant football of his career according to his coach.
“I’m biased but I think he’s the best player in the comp,” Scott said. “I think he was that again tonight.
“They had a few good players in the midfield but he was outstanding. I think he’s in a rare patch of form, even for him.”
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Scott is confident his team, who won their 16th game last night, has got back to the form which saw it start the season 11-1.
“We’ll go into a finals series pretty confident that we’re playing good enough footy to get the job done.” he said.
“We have had a bit of a plan and there’s obviously things you can’t control. I don’t think in the modern game there are many teams that can just obliterate the competition every single week including the finals.
“To an extent you need to prepare for the fact that there might be some lulls in your game and you have to respond as well as you can.
“I think setting up the season in the first half was good for us. But it probably didn’t contribute to a really consistent next six or seven weeks.
“We created some of that ourselves deliberately because we prioritised other things. We get to now and we think we’ve prepared really well.
“In some ways I’d prefer not to have the week off. We think we’re ready to go now but it will help us with a couple of players.”
The Cats history off the bye isn’t good although Scott pointed out there was a lot of difference between the mid-season bye and having a week off leading into the finals.
Forward Gary Rohan (hip) and midfielder Mitch Duncan (shoulder) were hampered last night but ended up playing out the game.
Young gun Jordan Clark is a chance to return from an elbow injury in the VFL next week while small forward Tom Atkins will benefit from the extra week after having minor hand surgery.
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Scott was happy with the performance of ruckman Rhys Stanley in his first game since Round 18 while another classy display from youngster Quinton Narkle provided the coach with more selection headaches.
“I thought he (Stanley) was good. I thought our stoppages were good and scores from stoppages were heavily in our favour,” he said.
“I thought he played well right from the first centre bounce of the game against a good player. I thought he was pretty effective.
“ (Narkle) is going to be hard to leave out that’s for sure. We have some depth and we’ve got some headaches.”
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The Teague train missed its stop at South Geelong station last night.
Geelong were in September mode which made David Teague's second official game as the Blues coach one to forget.
Seven goals in-a-row from midway through the first quarter to the halfway mark of the second term put the game to bed with the Cats eventually running out easy winners by 68 points.
For those who backed Patrick Dangerfield to win his second Brownlow Medal this was a pivotal evening.
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He was on from the opening bounce and was clearly the dominant player on the ground in the first half with 18 possessions — 10 contested — six clearances, three centre clearances, seven inside 50s and three goals.
Dangerfield finished with 34 touches and 4.3 goals and may have pushed this game to the back of Gill McLachlan's running sheet when he reads the votes on Brownlow night to add to the tension.
Fellow Brownlow contender Patrick Cripps at least put his hand up for possibly one vote with 35 disposals which included 20 contested possessions and 13 clearances.
To continue the Brownlow flavour two-time winner Gary Ablett will be in the votes with his class and clean hands a standout on a wet night at GMHBA Stadium.
There were plenty of positives for the Cats with youngster Quinton Narkle shining again, ruckman Rhys Stanley made a welcome return to form while the defensive unit was back to its stingy best allowing the Blues just eight goals.
THE TUOHY EXPERIMENT
For the second consecutive week regular defender Zach Tuohy played at half-forward and provided enough evidence to suggest the experiment may continue into the finals.
Tuohy kicked two goals in the opening half — his only majors for the season — and certainly look the part.
His second goal came after the siren in the second quarter and brought back memories about his previous after-the-siren heroics last year.
The Irishman was the king of Geelong after kicking the winning goal from a set shot to defeat Melbourne in Round 18.
STANLEY TIME
Out-of-favour ruckman Rhys Stanley needed to make a statement and he certainly picked the appropriate moment to do it.
In his first game since Round 18, Stanley produced a tap at the opening bounce that would have made the late Polly Farmer proud.
Stanley jumped high over Carlton's Matthew Kruezer and then with his left hand tapped over the top of inner circle and into the path of Dangerfield who ran to 55m and kicked a goal.
All of this took 10 seconds and his teammates understood how important it was giving they ran from everywhere to congratulate Stanley who needs to hold the No. 1 ruck spot if the Cats are to be a genuine premiership threat.
WALSH BY THE NUMBERS
The best first-year player for 2019 became the statistically the most prolific in history with Sam Walsh collecting 554 possessions in his debut season.
The former Geelong Falcon came back to his hometown needing to get 10 touches for the record and he had that ticked off a couple of minutes into the third quarter before finishing with 24 possessions and one goal.
Walsh, who is a certainty to collect the Rising Star award next week, surpassed GWS star Toby Greene's record of 539 touches in a season which had been the most since Champion Data began recording stats since 1999.
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New Carlton coach David Teague will use Saturday night’s thrashing by Geelong as a tool to start his team’s pre-season.
Teague said his players needed to learn from what happened at GMHBA Stadium where they were outplayed by the No. 1 team in the competition.
“It was disappointing,” Teague said about the 68-point loss.
“Our guys effort has been up for 10 weeks straight but today we only had periods, we just weren’t there for four quarters against really good opposition.
“Hopefully our players will learn a little bit and we might even reflect on it when we come back for pre-season because there was some good learning out of that.
“I thought their hunt around the ball and the way they attacked the ball, they beat us convincingly in that area and that is something we have been strong in.
“They were up for the fight and for whatever reason I think we were slightly off.”
Teague’s record since he took over mid-season is 6-5 and he believes the Blues are in good shape to dramatically improve on their finishing position of 16th.
“You are always learning, I prefer to learn when we win and play well but we are always trying to get better,” he said.
“We had 120 minutes down here against good opposition to see where we are at and we’re not there yet.
“I think our group is in a position where they can use that, if they continue to learn and want these challenges and play these types of sides I think we’re going to be in a good position going forward.”
He said there would be further tinkering to the game plan but the most important part was that the Carlton players turned up to pre-season ready to improve again.
“We need to make sure our players understand that we have got an opportunity going forward and not to waste it,” Teague said.
“We need to look after each other in the next eight to 10 weeks to make sure we come back in a condition to take that next step because we have seen against a good team we’re not there yet.
“That’s our challenge.”
Veteran Ed Curnow was the Blues best player in the first half but was then rested because of an achilles problem.
Originally published as Chris Scott lauds Patrick Dangerfield as best player in AFL after four-goal masterclass against Carlton
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